I’ve been meaning to see Big Hero 6 since it was released in November, but the holidays aren’t a great time for me to go see a movie. Instead, I was preparing for celebrations and spending time with family (and traveling). I know theater owners don’t want to hear this, but now that they’ve announced the film will be out on home video next month, I’ll just wait. Especially since I can (with Amazon discount) preorder the Blu-ray for the […]

Late for Dinner is a 1991 science fiction movie (but focused on relationships instead of technology) that is the answer to a trivia question. W.D. Richter, the director of The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, only ever directed one other movie. It’s this one. It’s the story of two brothers (played by Brian Wimmer and Peter Berg) from 1961 who accidentally get frozen and wake up 30 years later. One has left behind a wife (Marcia Gay […]

I’m not sure the premise of this article, on how Avatar “is all-but-forgotten in the pop culture landscape”, will remain true — particularly when Avatar Land opens at Walt Disney World in 2017 — but it’s a fascinating reminder of how something well-known can burn out quickly, and how fickle popular tastes can be. The James Cameron film is the highest-grossing of all time, and it made 3-D a reputable artistic technique, not just a gimmick, but on its fifth […]

There are a couple of things in this new Disney/Turner deal that I like the sound of. Disney is revamping its Great Movie Ride at Hollywood Studios in Walt Disney World with the help of Turner Classic Movies, which will get “Presented by” credits at the attraction. TCM will periodically (four-five times a year) air a programming block called “Treasures From the Disney Vault” that will feature “vintage movies, cartoons, documentaries, and episodes of TV series like Disneyland and Walt […]

I know a number of my readers will be interested in this. The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness is a documentary about the workings of the famous animation studio that made such movies as Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, and The Secret World of Arrietty, Studio Ghibli. It will be out on DVD on January 27 (list price $29.95), but digital download purchases are available now. Here’s a synopsis, followed by the trailer: Granted near-unfettered access to the notoriously insular […]

The new Monsters University cartoon “Party Central” was originally supposed to run with The Good Dinosaur, a Pixar movie moved to November 2015. The MU short ran instead with Muppets Most Wanted. (Strangely, the short got a PG rating, when the two Monsters movies are G.) Now, to drive more signups for its Disney Movies Anywhere service, Disney has made the full short available to those who download their iPad/iPhone app. Here’s a trailer: My favorite gag: the code names […]

Following up on last week’s news of CBS and HBO planning to offer direct-to-customer streaming services, a movie studio has jumped into the market. Lionsgate and Tribeca Enterprises are teaming up on Tribeca Short List, “an online video-on-demand service focused on “curated” prestige titles drawn from their libraries, along with a selection of foreign films.” This will debut by next June; no price information is yet available. Tribeca is best known for their New York City film festival. Lionsgate is […]

I did a double-take when shown this poster for the upcoming video-on-demand movie Wolves. As you can see, the tagline reads “from the writer of X-Men and Watchmen“. I was surprised to think for a minute that Alan Moore wrote a werewolf movie. The name they’re actually crediting is David Hayter, who wrote the screenplays for those films and has written and directed Wolves, which will be available on VOD on October 16 and stars Lucas Till, who played Havok […]